“I really believe that applying poetry, or language in general, to trauma is the ultimate act of reclaiming. Naming something gives you a sort of ownership over it (hey, colonialism did it all the time, haha), so choosing words that identify your experience makes it less of this looming unknown that has you at its mercy. It makes everything less ‘something that happened to me’ and more ‘experience/story that belongs to me,’ you know?”

Here’s the Interview which has some videos of Safia Elhillo too. There’s a question about how Elhillo uses alter egos which was really interesting to me especially recalling Esperanza Spalding referring to a phrase she got from Wayne Shorter: “a flashlight into the future.” I feel adrift and these artists are giving useful tools to keep my head above water.

Timothy writes, “Diego Gómez is a Colombian conservation biologist. When
he was a college student, he shared a single research paper online so
that others could read and learn from it, just as he did. Diego was
criminally prosecuted for copyright infringement, and faced up to 8
years in prison.”

“Today a court in Colombia acquitted him of the charges. This is good.
Dragging students into court for sharing educational materials makes no
sense. But the fight isn’t over. The prosecution is appealing the case,
and we’ll need to help Diego in his defense yet again.”